Written by Kiran Revally – May 2024
If you're preparing for an AWS certification exam or just want to expand your knowledge about AWS, you’ve probably come across the AWS whitepapers.
At first, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of them—there are over 200! But after going through several while studying for my own certifications, I realized some are definitely more helpful than others.
To save you from reading through tons of pages, I’ve picked out the top five whitepapers that are actually worth your time. These cover essential AWS topics that will help you prepare for your exams.
1. Overview of Amazon Web Services
This whitepaper is a detailed introduction to AWS, though it's nearly 100 pages long. But here’s the good news—you only need to read the first few pages to get the basics. The rest of it is just a list of AWS services with descriptions.
This might sound boring, but it’s incredibly useful when you’re studying for your exam. You can use it as a reference guide when you come across services you don’t know. Over time, this will help you remember all the key AWS services.
Overview of Amazon Web Services
2. How AWS Pricing Works
AWS has different pricing models, and you need to understand them for your exam. This whitepaper explains pricing options like on-demand, spot instances, reserved instances, and more.
If you’re unsure about when to use spot instances or on-demand for EC2 or confused about different S3 storage classes like Standard or Glacier, this whitepaper will clear things up for you. It’s a must-read if you want to avoid surprises on the exam.
3. AWS Well-Architected Framework
The Well-Architected Framework is one of the most important guides for building secure, scalable applications in the cloud. This whitepaper covers the key principles and best practices for designing resilient infrastructure on AWS.
This framework has become a big part of AWS exams, so it’s really important to read this one. AWS has also added hands-on labs and a Well-Architected Tool to help you apply what you learn.
AWS Well-Architected Framework
4. AWS Storage Services Overview
AWS offers many storage options, like EFS, EBS, and S3, and this whitepaper explains each one. It’s especially useful for the Solutions Architect exam, which focuses a lot on storage.
Understanding the different AWS storage services, their performance, scalability, and cost will help you answer the questions that come up in your exam.
5. Fault-Tolerant Components on AWS
One of AWS’s strengths is how it handles failures without affecting the overall system. This whitepaper teaches you how to design systems that can survive outages, using Regions, Availability Zones, and Auto Scaling.
Since fault tolerance and high availability are covered in every AWS exam, this is definitely one whitepaper you don’t want to skip.
Fault-Tolerant Components on AWS
Bonus: Implementing Microservices on AWS
If your exam covers microservices or serverless architecture, this whitepaper is very helpful. It explains patterns like API-driven, event-driven, and data streaming along with services like API Gateway and AWS Lambda. Microservices and serverless questions come up often in the exams, so this is worth a read.
Implementing Microservices on AWS
Conclusion
These five whitepapers (plus one bonus) will give you a solid foundation for your AWS exam without overwhelming you. They cover the most important topics and concepts, helping you focus on what really matters for the test.
If you think I missed a great one, let me know!